Can Bollywood break the West with Kites?

With car crashes, explosions and shoot-outs, one could be forgiven for assuming Kites is the latest offering from Michael Bay or John Carpenter. It is actually the latest Bollywood attempt to create a film that will appeal to Eastern and Western audiences alike. But have director Anurag Basu and producer Rakesh Roshan got it right?
 
Instantly separating it from traditional Bollywood fare is its multicultural cast, who speak in English, Hindi and Spanish. Its setting is equally unexpected, using Las Vegas, the southwestern states and rural Mexico as its stage. Influences are just as wide-ranging, drawing in equal measure from the romance, action and film noir genres.
 
What is straight out of Bollywood, however, is its central theme of star-crossed lovers. J (played by the Indian actor Hrithik Roshan) and Natasha (the Uruguayan model and actress Barbara Mori) are both engaged to other people but fall in love and go on the run, hoping to find a place where they can be happy together - if they can avoid the violent cocktail of explosions, car chases and even a bank robbery standing in their way.
 
So, does it work? As Jeanette Katsoulis of the New York Times puts it: "[Kites] is a lovers-on-the-lam blast of pure pulp escapism, so devoted to diversion that you probably won't even notice the corn."
 
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:Kevin Thomas, the Los Angeles Times: "In its telling, the love story draws from westerns, musicals, film noir, chase thrillers with stunts so preposterous they verge on parody - and it gets away with everything because of Basu's visual bravura and unstinting passion and energy." (4/5 stars)
 
David Chute, Village Voice: "Not even the incoherent mish-mash of plot (mostly faux Sergio Leone by way of Tarantino and Rodriguez, with periodic car-flipping chase sequences) can entirely dim the appeal of this match-up between a blue-eyed Punjabi and a blue-eyed Mexican of almost equal comeliness."
 
Lisa Tsering, the Hollywood Reporter: "Despite the extremes of Basu's script and producer Rakesh Roshan's story, Roshan anchors the film with a solid, believable performance and a palpable chemistry with his co-star that will remind audiences just how hot a good Bollywood romance can be." (4/5 stars)
 
Peter Debruge, Variety: "The deliriously entertaining and shamelessly derivative Hindi Kites owes more to Hollywood than Bollywood, though director Anurag Basu borrows plenty from both, aiming to give Indian song-and-dance pics the same sort of crossover success Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did for Asian martial-arts movies."

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